There are now 120 million refugees and forcibly displaced people in the world, i.e. one person in 69, representing 1.5% of the world’s population, according to the UNHCR!

In 2002, there were 32.9 million.

In 2012, there were 45.2 million.

In 2017, there were 68.5 million.

In 2021, there will be 89.3 million people forced into exile by war and disaster.

At this rate, how many will there be tomorrow?

If we consider some of the major trends at work on our planet – extreme poverty, disasters, conflict – and if we just want to be realistic, there is an urgent need to prepare to help a growing number of victims of war, disasters and epidemics.

The humanitarian raison d’être is to save lives. Current wars, such as those in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan, are characterised by their intensity, their multiplication and their duration, and they mainly affect civilian populations, feeding the ever-increasing flow of forcibly displaced people and refugees.

This thermometer of global fever is a key indicator of both human suffering and the destabilising effects of the domino effect, ultimately washing up on the beaches of the English Channel or the Mediterranean.

If this is an urgent humanitarian issue, it is also a political issue that cannot be satisfied with failure!

Russia’s attack on Ukraine on 24 February 2022 led to the questioning of borders by a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. It is an example that will inspire others. Azerbaijan did just that when it forcibly expelled 100,000 Armenians from their ancestral homeland of Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023.

This is the risk now facing Georgia, having already lost South Ossetia and Abkhasia. Hamas’s murderous attack on the Israeli population on 7 October triggered a war whose terrifying consequences for the Palestinian civilian population are frightening to contemplate.

Globalisation has given way to a multipolar world in which values, interests and fierce competition are at odds.

And yet, at a time when humanitarian aid is being called on from all sides by a growing number of crises and victims, it is increasingly being asked to do everything, even though financial resources are cruelly lacking and access to populations in danger is becoming more difficult and dangerous.

The proof? This year, the United Nations, with OCHA and its partners, identified 300 million human beings in danger to be helped. As a result, only 180 million have been selected as worthy of aid. And we’re not even sure we’ll get there, because at the time of writing, at least 80% of the essential funding is still missing, i.e. a total of 46.4 billion dollars this year. And what will become of the 120 million people who have been turned down? Who cares?

Isn’t that simply disgraceful in a world with a market capitalisation of around 95,000 billion?

So let’s put it bluntly. If humanitarian aid is an insurance policy for every life in danger, it is also a vital insurance policy for everyone. Less humanitarian action means more forced displacement, more despair, more radicalisation, more massive and uncontrolled migratory movements, and more hotbeds of conflict that risk exploding in their turn.

At a time when the old empires are aspiring to become empires again, when nations want to protect themselves, clear-sightedness and experience teach us that at the start of the 21st century there are global risks such as climate change, the water crisis (pollution, overexploitation, flooding, drought), the demographic explosion in Africa and the return of war which, even if we favour the “every man for himself” rule to protect ourselves, mean that we have to face up to them and find solutions for everyone that no one can find alone.

This does not call into question the democratic legitimacy that peoples and nations give themselves, but it should lead them to contribute to humanitarian life insurance for everyone. And, to take the logic to its logical conclusion, wouldn’t that be fair to all possible regimes responsible for their populations?

Here, the ethic of conviction meets the ethic of responsibility. So let’s not shoot the humanitarian ambulance.

Thank you for your support for Défis Humanitaires (faireundon).

Alain Boinet.

PS1/ If you have an example of positive humanitarian action, you can send us your testimonial which we will publish or use in a future article. We look forward to hearing from you. Send to: contact@defishumanitaires.com

PS2/ Défis Humanitaires would like to thank the authors of the articles and interviews published in this issue as part of our editorial policy, without our magazine endorsing all the points of view expressed.